Recorded Memories

Carole Bramley Interview. October 2001

Carole Bramley early working life in Pex and Corah’s:
‘You tended to think that factory fodder was from the secondary modern schools’

‘Manicurist came round…hands soaked in soapy water…get a file…just to make sure you didn’t catch the nylons…very fine nylon stockings’

Carole was brought up in Narborough and worked in Pex and Corahs in Leicester. Her parents were from Sapcote and Stoney Stanton. Her father spent his working life as a knitter in Brewin’s in Leicester and her mother was a finisher and worked in Enderby. Her sister ‘was the clever one and went to grammar school’.

Carole remembers her mother having hand finishing work at home and from the age of eight Carol would help her mother with the hand finishing work and she was paid 1d for one hours work. She remembers before leaving school they had different people visiting the school and talked about various jobs – ‘you tended to think that factory fodder was from secondary modern schools, it was a bit lower status than from the grammar schools’. She never wanted to work in a factory and quite liked the idea of working in a nice shop and she got herself a job in Joseph Johnson. Her father, however, persuaded her to go into a factory and she worked at Pecks where she stayed for five years. She trained as a linker. She was engaged by this time and saving to get married. She remembers a manicurist coming round the factory to do her nails, ‘Hands soaked in soapy water… get a file, just to make sure you didn’t catch the nylons…obviously it was based on economic reasons…less pulls and threads because this was nylon, very fine nylon stockings I used to work on, and I’d spend all day putting them onto points as they rotated round. ’ She was in the training school for a while and when she went on her ‘own time’ she earned about £4 or £5. She felt she had a reasonable amount to live on paying ‘board’.

After about five years Carole left Pex and got herself a job at Jenners, a dress shop on Belviour Street. While working there she was able to buy herself some nice clothes. She did, however, go back into factory work having been persuaded by her boyfriend – they were saving to get married. She went to Corahs about 1962 and the linking which she was trained to do was phased out and she was given the opportunity of learning the countering. She did enjoy the countering and from there left to have her children. She did outwork when her children were young but found the linking very difficult to do at home and changed to finishing which she did enjoy but could be working until 1.30 am, never earning much money. But the money did come in useful. Carol, however, wanted to learn more skills – ‘do something that was equal to a man…more independence’. She split up from her husband and did part time work, packing, but was told she had to work full time. She also did outwork and childminding. She ‘went on the state for a bit... subsidised by the state’. Carol remarried in 1970 and they moved into a hospital house and in time she trained as a psychiatric nurse working at Carlton Hayes. They bought a house in Stoney Stanton, she did a degree – ‘no more hosiery work’.

When she first started work Carole thought of herself as a ‘bit of a country bumpkin and the girls she worked with were ‘townies’. She felt she was a bit naïve, not very experienced in the ways of the world. The city girls went out with boys. She did make a friend at the factory and they went on holidays together when they were about 15-16. They went to Butlins -‘You got a chalet, no hot water, no toilet even and these great big rooms where you got your food, not very nice food!’. ‘And do you know what my mother did – made this corset for me…made me wear this corset with money down it!’ At this time older people did still wear corsets.